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Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2006

Weather services compete in blossom forecasting

One would think Eishin Murakata has a pleasant, relaxing job. Every spring, he strolls each day to the same cherry tree in central Tokyo and gazes up at its boughs. When he spots a full bud on the verge of blossoming, he carefully snaps a photograph.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 23, 2006

A grand splash

Just before Japan's economy took a downturn, the Tokyu railroad conglomerate celebrated good times with the construction of the splendidly designed Bunkamura arts complex just behind its flagship department store in Tokyo's Shibuya district.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 21, 2006

Japan, Cuba battle against the odds to make it to WBC final

SAN DIEGO -- The baseball giant who couldn't and the world-class unknown that almost wasn't allowed are getting ready to play for the World Baseball Classic championship. How perfect.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Mar 21, 2006

White Day

Dear Alice,
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 20, 2006

Cubans down Dominicans

SAN DIEGO -- Team Cuba didn't come all the way to Petco Park to get smoked.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 20, 2006

What the Merchant of Venice might think about BOJ policy

"The quality of mercy is not strained."
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2006

Africa's clock ticking on bird flu virus

NEW YORK -- The spread of avian flu to Africa and Europe, although expected, is unwelcome news. In the last few weeks the disease has reached several states in northern Nigeria and Niger. Together with other countries in West Africa, they are on the bird migratory route from Central Asia and the Middle...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Mar 19, 2006

Is this really just good fun?

You couldn't miss him if you tried: The guy in the skintight black vest and hotpants is popping up wherever you look in Japan these days, thrusting his pelvis on television, striking his signature "Y" pose on magazine covers and boasting about his beefy workouts in subway ads.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 19, 2006

Prefecture opts for foster-care plan to combat declining birthrate

A recent Associated Press poll found that Americans' views about abortion aren't very clear-cut. Only a small percentage of the respondents were in favor of either legalizing abortion completely or banning it outright. About 60 percent were somewhere in the middle. The AP took these results to mean that...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 19, 2006

Myths behind the rise of the mobile

PERSONAL, PORTABLE, PEDESTRIAN: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Misa Matsuda. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 357 pp., $39 (cloth). Consider the refrigerator. The changes this appliance brought in its wake are monumental. Thanks to that big humming machine in the kitchen,...
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2006

Oil firms adjust footing amid Iran's nuclear follies

As tension mounts worldwide over the standoff concerning Iran's nuclear ambitions, Japanese oil companies are starting to take precautions as uncertainties surrounding the situation may force them to stop importing oil from the Islamic state.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 17, 2006

Heating up dance floors

The Latin boom continues unabated in Tokyo. There are Latin dance lessons aplenty, spicy eateries and specialty cigar and rum bars; the latest bands from Cuba tour to full houses; and a Japanese-language free magazine, Salsa 120%, lists all things Latin. No longer just a fad, Latin culture has become...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 17, 2006

You can't really go wrong with the army on your side

Talking with Yevgeni Lavrentyev is like walking into a Tolstoy novel: The characters will launch into monologues that can take up an entire page, but ultimately they have their own agenda on what to say, or not.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 16, 2006

Protest peters out after disputed call

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Nippon Professional Baseball's formal protest was dead in the water before it left Japan.
EDITORIALS
Mar 16, 2006

Justice for Milosevic's victims

In death as in life, former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic was contemptuous of the world. The heart attack that claimed his life while being tried for war crimes may have kept a tribunal from declaring him guilty, but there was no doubt about the eventual outcome. Mr. Milosevic was wrong -- and on...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 16, 2006

Arakawa's strong will is key to her success on world stage

While Shizuka Arakawa dazzled Japan with her enchanting performance in capturing the gold medal in the Turin Games last month, she also illustrated what separates her from most of her sporting compatriots -- individuality and candor.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 14, 2006

WBC Notebook

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Ichiro Suzuki saw daylight for one at-bat, but now he's back in the dark.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 14, 2006

Arakawa in no rush to make future plans

Turin Olympic gold medalist Shizuka Arakawa said Monday she has yet to make up her mind on whether to turn professional and will not be rushed into making a decision on her future.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 14, 2006

Ensnared in the office, dads increasingly remote

There is this enduring stereotype of the Nippon no otosan (Japanese Dad). It emerged sometime during the 1970s and remains, to this day, the most common and recognizable model for fatherhood in Japan.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 13, 2006

Koreans hope semi spot enough for military release

PHOENIX -- Grab a uniform and do it for your country. Whether it is in the army or in the World Baseball Classic, several members of Team Korea will do just that soon enough. Or they will already have done both.
EDITORIALS
Mar 12, 2006

A tribute to a brave soul

In May 2004, a woman named Dana Reeve delivered a commencement speech at her alma mater, Middlebury College in Vermont, where she and her husband were being awarded honorary degrees. It was an upbeat speech. There was nothing unusual about that. Commencement speeches are supposed to be upbeat. Most of...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 12, 2006

Weekly magazines joust over trillion-yen fortunetelling trade

It is often said that if you really want to understand what is happening in Japan you should read the weekly magazines. Though the weeklies' journalistic standards are considered less rigorous than those of the daily newspapers, they are less reluctant to step on toes that belong to people who might...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 12, 2006

Equality still has a long way to go

International Women's Day, commemorated March 8, was a chance to celebrate women's achievements. But it also highlighted the fact that discrimination continues to be a major problem for women around the globe -- and Japanese women, unfortunately, are no exception. In fact, the world's second-largest...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 11, 2006

Akane Okamoto-Kaminski

Marek Kaminski, born in Poland in 1947, graduated from Warsaw University. As an advanced student of ethnic minority groups, he went on to the University of Sweden. In Sweden he met and married his wife, a Korean-Japanese who was traveling there. Akane, their daughter, was born in Goteborg, and their...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 11, 2006

Good Day to hear all about Ranald MacDonald

Never heard the name Ranald MacDonald? (Not easily forgotten, for sure.) This is about to change, thanks to the book "Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan" by American author Frederik Schodt.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2006

Trial opens in Nishimura lawyer scandal

OSAKA -- Shingo Nishimura, the ultraconservative Diet member arrested last year for allowing a nonlawyer employee to illegally represent clients in his name, formally owned up to the charges as his Osaka District Court trial opened Thursday.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat